The Alpha Queen's Mate (Book 5 of The Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 27

After they left Holly and Noelle, Luke headed out to the lake and sat down on the hill overlooking it. Nick was still in complete shock. Noelle Remington, the future Queen of all werewolves was his mate.

Of all the women he'd thought to be mated to, it wasn't her, especially after her eighteenth birthday had come and gone. Not that he'd given any thought to it. Why would he?

Of course he'd always been aware of her. How could he not be when she spent so much time around her father. It was obvious she was a daddy's girl. If he saw Daniel, Noelle wasn't far behind. She'd been a staple at pack meetings, with her adorable brown ringlets and her cute chubby cheeks. He'd played with her, always giving her some of his time. She'd been an adorable child.

She'd still stayed close to her father up through her teenage years as well, watching what he did. Nick had known then that Noelle would be Queen. She was made for it, and she would embrace it.

But then she'd gone away to college, and he'd rarely seen her. But he'd noticed her, noticed that she'd become a beautiful young woman. But he hadn't really noticed her until this past week. It was then that he'd realized how truly beautiful she was.

He'd never intended to mess around with her, had never intended to cross that boundary, but it had happened, and he had relived it more than once in his mind since yesterday morning. He couldn't get it out of his head, how she'd felt in his arms. He hadn't dared think he might actually get to touch her again.

And now, Nick was actually really excited.
He had been waiting for her for almost four hundred years, searching everywhere. And she'd been right there.  He'd woken up with her in his arms yesterday morning.

Noelle was unprecedented. There had never been an Alpha Queen before, and the question of who she would be mated to had been discussed many times by the pack leadership over the years. None of them had known that her future mate was taking part in the conversation.

They'd always agreed that Noelle didn't need to be mated to an Alpha. It would not be easy for one to give up his pack and walk away. And then what they'd hoped wouldn't happen, happened. She'd been mated to Alpha Alexander Artino. Nick knew him quite well. Her mating couldn't have got more wrong. It irked Nick that the man had done what he'd done to her. He wasn't quite sure how Alex thought that was going to work. But to do it to Noelle Remington of all people?

He had betrayed her, betrayed her trust before he even knew her. Nick could understand him not waiting for her. Alex didn't have many lifetimes to wait for his mate. He was thirty years old. Most Alphas were mated before they took over at the age of twenty-five. But Nick also knew that Alex had been dating Evangelina since before his 18th birthday. He'd never marked her which Nick didn't understand either. Apparently he had still been holding out hope for his mate even after marrying another woman and having children with her. That part really annoyed him.

He remembered how angry Daniel had been when he'd finally gotten a hold of him. Anger and then sorrow at how much he knew his daughter was hurting. "She'd probably be better off taking a chosen mate, so this doesn't happen again," Daniel had muttered towards the end of the conversation.

He'd thought on that after he'd gotten off the phone with him. Would he himself be willing to take her as his chosen? Not that Daniel had mentioned him at all. He knew her father was just thinking out loud and was concerned with what she was going through.

Part of him had said no, simply because he wanted his fated, and he knew she would too; but a larger part of him had screamed yes. If Daniel had asked him to, he would have seriously considered it. He wondered now if it was because that new bond was starting to form already, and he was much more drawn to her than he had been the last time he'd seen it. He couldn't imagine how it was going to be tomorrow at breakfast.